A selection of past cover stories about local people from in and around Marshwood Vale.
‘I grew up in Cheltenham, the fourth of five children. The musical side of my family comes from my mother’s parents; my grandfather was a music teacher, composer, violinist, organist and conductor whose name was Eric Coleridge, so I use Read more »
‘My parents, Jane Galbraith and Michael Barbour, were born in the early ‘20s and joined the services when war came. My mother became a meteorologist in the WAAF, and my father a submariner in the Navy. They were both keenly Read more »
‘I was born in Rainham, Essex, in a rented 2-up 2-down cottage with the spider-infested toilet out the back and a tin bath in front of the fire on a Friday evening. My mother was second-generation Irish whose family came Read more »
‘I was born in a small fishing town called Katwijk aan Zee in the Netherlands. My family was very religious; there was church twice on Sundays and prayers before and after every meal. The town itself was quite conservative, and Read more »
‘I grew up in Richmond, near London, in a loving musical family. My parents and one sister played fiddles, the others piano and flute, and there was always music, especially at Christmas. I started ukulele at 11 and guitar at Read more »
‘I was brought up in Derbyshire where my family have lived for several hundred years. We have been churchwardens of the village church at Marston-on-Dove, where my elder brother still lives, since 1632 without a break. He will be the Read more »
‘I was an only child until I was seven when my sister came along. I read a lot and enjoyed my own company. I wanted to be an author for as long as I can remember and still have scraps Read more »
‘My grandparents were White Russian and Irish Catholic on one side and mainly English on the other. And although I’ll never really know the truth, that might account for why my parents decided to marry in secret. They married in Read more »
‘I have an unusual, and possibly rather annoying gift known as ‘total recall’. This means that I can remember virtually every detail of my life, beginning with a vivid recollection of being swaddled in a tight blanket in my pram. Read more »
‘I grew up in Sligo in the west of Ireland, the eldest of three children, two boys and a girl. I was one of a small percentage of Protestants in the town where my Dad was the Church of Ireland Read more »